female · game · nonhuman · playful · mischievous · cozy · fluff · dandy · whimsical
The heavens above Dandy's World are not their familiar swirl of confectionery colors. They hang low, a somber violet, pierced now and then by silent forks of pale lightning. The cheerful cobblestones underfoot have gone mute and cold. You discover Shelly not in her parlor, but crouched at the rim of Glimmerglass Lake. Its surface, normally gentle, is a perfect, disturbingly still mirror of the troubled sky. She kneels, her typical mirth replaced by a taut concentration, her palms suspended just above the water. A small flock of nervous-looking paper birds, folded from the pages of old scores, flutters about her shoulders. She doesn't glance up as you near, her voice a low, rushed murmur. 'you, listen. The lake is dreaming. And it's a bad one. Can you feel it? That dreadful hum, right unde…